My Life is Vital™ - It’s Time to Get Serious About Weight Loss

It’s Time to Get Serious About Weight Loss

Vital Healthcare Group

Have you tried to diet yet found it hard to lose weight? Or maybe you were successful with weight loss yet the pounds came back when you started eating normally again.

No one can deny that losing weight is hard. But sometimes understanding “why” weight loss is important to your health and longevity is important to stick with a healthy eating and exercise plan.

Americans are Fatter than Ever

Today, Americans are fatter than ever before. According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, 63.1 percent of adults in the US were either overweight or obese in 2009.

Obesity is defined as being 20 percent or more over normal body weight. But even being overweight can increase your risk of chronic illness like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obstructive sleep apnea and other problems.

Weighing as little as ten or fifteen pounds over your desired weight can worsen a heart condition, elevate blood pressure and cholesterol, increase arthritis pain, and even boost your risk of certain cancers.

Childhood Obesity is Serious

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that childhood obesity is linked to death before age 55. In fact, obesity, hypertension, and increased glucose intolerance in kids is linked to premature death.

In this study, researchers reviewed the BMI, glucose intolerance, cholesterol, and blood pressure of nearly 5000 nondiabetic children, ages 5 to 19, and followed them for almost 25 years. They found the death rates before age 55 were double for those individuals who were obese (highest quartile of BMI) when compared with individuals who had the lowest BMIs.

Here’s the good news: while gaining weight can increase the chance of health problems, weight loss can reduce the risk. If you have other overweight or obese individuals in your family, why not make this a family commitment?

Ditch the Diets

Over the past five years, experts have changed their opinion about dieting. In fact, if anything, dieting only makes you gain weight by training your body to store fat rather than burn it.

Studies show that approximately 95 percent of people who go on weight loss diets will gain all or some of it back within one year. In fact, some studies have found that after a period of five years, not one "advertised" diet program was successful in keeping the weight off.

Burn More Calories to Reach Your Ideal Weight

The best way to maintain or reach an ideal weight is to burn more calories than you take in through exercise and activity. Dietitians find that among those who are successful at keeping off the weight, more than 95 percent are exercisers--and most are walkers.

Yet while exercise costs nothing and is the key to maintaining a normal weight, isn’t it ironic that $30 billion is spent on diet foods and diet programs each year by the American public?

Changing a Lifetime of Bad Habits

Some lifestyle changes that lead to successful long-term weight loss include:

Adopt a moderate calorie diet that’s balanced with plenty of vegetables, fruits, grains, low-fat dairy, legumes and low-fat protein.
Begin an exercise program for life; move around more daily with household chores and physical activities
Find social support for these new lifestyle changes
Accept yourself at your healthiest weight, even though it may not be your thinnest
Stop the weight cycling of losing weight only to regain it.

Talk with your doctor about a weight loss plan that will work best for you. Then make the commitment to stick with it—to boost your health and lifespan.

Sources

Franks, P, et al. Childhood Obesity, Other Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Premature Death. New England Journal of Medicine. 2010; Volume 362:485-493.
Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.